Tattoos and Rail Guns Chapter 18: When Demons Plan For the Future

Sharness rode up to her “temple”; the 1920s mansion had been refurbished with an apocalypse in mind, making it an excellent base for her operations. She had fallen in love with the curves and swoops of the mansion; it was a gorgeous edifice only highlighted by the gardens around it and the pools that someone had taken care to design slides, fire pits, and hidden nooks. It was made to satisfy the needs of those who had lived there and she could appreciate that as no human living on the planet could.

She also enjoyed the feel of the motorcycle below her and the wind flowing through her unhelmeted hair; while there were many issues with this planet, with the flow of its mana the biggest problem, there were definitely many perks to it as well. The mansion, the motorcycle, the silks, all of these made her existence here well worth the trip from the lowest plane of Hell.

As she parked in front of the mansion, she could feel eyes upon her, and it was a feeling she relished. The mansion was hers by right of conquest, and that meant that if she was attacked here, she knew she would be defended. She had made sure that the people living here would provide whatever she needed: There were farmers, maintenance, and above all security, and that everyone was skilled in those three areas. This made them not only more confident but more beholden to her as she had shown them the way.

She smiled as she thought about the other benefits that had wrought, as her people were healthier, stronger, and hardier than they had been when she had met them. As a succubus, this was well worth the investment of time as it meant more energy that could be gleaned from them, and it also meant her other needs could be satisfied as well. As those that lived here now were more than willing to assist in dealing with those needs, she was able to not only enjoy herself more but glean more energy from them as well.

After all, she was the leader and champion of the house, and what made her more powerful made her even more able to lead and defend that house. After centuries of literally devouring knights of all kinds, it felt weird to be the paladin. Strangely, she actually relished the feeling. When this world was remade by the will of those to whom she owed fealty, she would need to extend the reach of her mansion.

She had radioed ahead as soon as she was within a few miles. There were automatic weapons trained on her and soldiers, not just security, ready to rush her as soon as the weapons stopped her. They were hidden, sure, and therefore practically invisible; she knew they had been ready as soon as she was within a few miles of the mansion. If she had not carried a device shouting out to the weapons who she was, she would not have survived the trip in. This additional security made her mansion a bastion against the outside world.

As soon as she passed the threshold of the mansion, a light above changed from red to blue and the atmosphere changed from one of dread to one of welcoming. Crowds welcomed her; she touched as many as she could, gleaning just a little energy from each. This also brought all of them closer to her as they sought out her touch. Several mothers and fathers approached her to announce that their children were now of age; she smiled to them as she told them that she would arrange for the ceremony. As they left, she felt pride even as she welcomed new sources of that special energy that she needed.

Her smile faded as she headed into her true center of operations. As she walked into the control room, Callum, her seneschal, walked over to her, almost flowing into place from the shadows. A tall, beardless man with no chin, he was dressed as a technician in a pink polo shirt.

“I hope the journey was fine, ma'am?”

She sat down. “Yes, plenty was accomplished. Have three adolescents ready in my bedroom for after this meeting.”

“They will be ready, ma'am”. He typed out a quick message on his tablet.

“I presume that the harvest is on target here?”

He left her just long enough to grab a bottle of red wine from the bar. “Yes, ma'am. We have seven ready for your pleasure.”

She smiled. “Seven? That's an increase from last year. Good job!”

He poured her a glass of the wine. “Thank you, ma'am.” He gave her the glass. “They have been sequestered away from the rest and instructions have been given.”

She accepted the glass. “Good. That gives us a total of....twelve. Excellent.”

He brought up some maps. There were a number of circles, triangles, and squares. “We have begun tracking the lamptowns, raiders, and mage gangs, as per your request.”

She looked at the maps. “Excellent. The next phase of the plan is to send missionaries to the lamptowns, hire some of the mage gangs for ancillary item creation, and then some of the raiders for a little additional security.”

He made notes on his tablet. “Yes, ma'am.”

“We’re going to need those twelve in the next few days at our downtown location. We'll need fifty individuals for downtown security. I would also like a hundred individuals working a circuit between downtown and the mansionto avoid surprises on their trip there. Make sure that they have portable radios and whatever ammunition they require. Offer them two days of food, but allow them to haggle you to three.”

“Understood, ma'am.”

“The lamptowns are primarily minors and hate adults. As such, send out small teams, three boys and two girls, along with a cyborg for protection and a mage, preferably one of the younger sorcerers. Allow them a fully-loaded van and give them some freedom for bargaining. We always need bodies and they are the best opportunity for that.”

“Noted, ma'am.”

“Grab as many mages as you can and spoil them until I get back. Prep the dungeon for them and we'll deal with it when I get back in a week.”

“Understood, and a week, ma'am?”

“Yes. I have some issues that need to be dealt with, and we need to start worrying about that base more than ever. It may need to be infiltrated, so we'll need some healthy adolescents and maybe some of the older adults.”

“Understood, ma'am.”

“And that should be that.” She stood up and moved closer to Callum. “Just one more thing.”

He put the tablet down. “Yes, ma'am.”

She pulled his shirt off and proceeded to feed the way she preferred. She let Callum sleep where he was when she headed to her bedroom. The idea of three young, healthy bodies invigorated her.

* * * * *

Deezle the Defiler was having a long day and it promised only to get longer. A few of his gargoyles had been killed, one just because it looked like a statue. The squad everyone was tracking was off the grid; the chelan explosion took four off the grid while the remaining trio had disappeared from the various tracking screens. Making it worse was that the tattooed warrior had disappeared, but no chronal rifts had been formed in the last few hours, so he had to still be here. He had drones attempting to find the trio.

It was also the monthly password change day; it meant that he was running blind in so many ways until his viruses reported in. He hated being a techno-demon sometimes; other demons treated technology as mysterious and arcane, and came to him for all of their problems. While it did mean that he had a lot of favors owed him and from a lot of powerful demons (one of his higher-ups owed him a doozy just for unlocking his phone!), it did mean that they bugged him for help way too often, taking him away from his beloved machines.

That was one good thing about this godforsaken planet: Fewer demons bugged him for favors. Lellend seemed to have his own tech skills and Sharness had her own resources; this left him plenty of time to play games. He would nonetheless not miss this mudball when he was relocated to another post; hopefully, it would be to a place with some actually decent tech. This planet didn't even have teleporters or replicators! The primitives were just mastering power armor and rail guns and thought that they were oh-so-advanced.

That forced a smile from him.

He quickly focused back on the tasks at hand. He had found a blind spot, and had to add a camera. He grabbed his toolkit and a camera from his supply closet. He quickly installed the camera and synced it to the wireless network. He checked out the installation to make sure it was virtually hidden; when he was happy, he returned the toolkit to its place. He did a quick system check, and his own antivirus programs had caught a few interlopers but none had gotten very far; he wasn't sure if he should be proud of his skills or disappointed in this world's lack of computer skill. His viruses were reporting back; he sighed as his links were coming back to life.

So, his life was returning to normal.

He grabbed a burrito from the freezer, put it in the microwave, and tapped his fingers as he waited. The tapping stopped as a thought worked its way through his brain. There were plenty of caves and caverns below the local terrain; the lamptowns took advantage of these to hide from the military and his ilk. It therefore made sense that the warrior he was worried about had probably underground, possibly literally. Intrigued he grabbed a toolkit and rushed to his drones. He began building a walker, and fell into such a rhythm that he lost track of time. Soon he had six ready for work.

Backed by a basic search algorithm, they should be able to find the tattooed warrior relatively quickly, especially as they knew where he had disappeared.

The microwave dinged but he didn't hear it. He was releasing his hounds into the night, electronic dogs looking for a smell. Hopefully, they would find it soon.

[The last chapter is here.]